musings of a Florida girl turned California housewife

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Month: August 2015

This past weekend we had no plans and nothing on the calendar so we decided to make Saturday a family fun day. We knew we wanted to do something fun with the girls and have dinner out so I suggested we head to Lodi.

I first visited the town back in July when I took the girls to the Micke Grove Zoo. I’d heard such great things about it from friends and the girls and I ended up loving it. Yes, it is a very small zoo and there are no giraffes, elephants or lions BUT it’s perfect for my girls. It’s small enough to get around easily and there is enough to look at. It keeps the girls entertained but not overwhelmed and that is a win in my book. Sophie actually remembered her favorite animals from the first time we were there. It was a beautiful day, not too hot and my hubby was able to get some great pictures.

After the zoo, we stopped at a park and let the girls play in the water fountains and on the swings and slides. After drying off and changing, we headed into downtown Lodi for an early dinner. When the girls and I were there in July, we drove through the downtown area but did not stop and I knew next time we were here, we had to stop downtown. I adore town’s that have a downtown area with shops, restaurants, etc. and Lodi’s downtown looked just adorable. I did a bit of research on restaurants beforehand and we decided to eat at the Lodi Beer Company. It was such a cute place! We ended up eating outside because it seemed a little loud inside but the interior was done really well. All brick and exposed walls, I loved how it looked. My hubby thought it was funny that Lyla and I were dying over how nice the bathrooms are but, hey, you gotta appreciate a nice, clean, well-decorated bathroom at a restaurant. The food and beer were great and the prices were very reasonable. We’ll definitely be back.

I’m going to try and keep this as brief as possible and mostly share our holiday through pictures. I believe pictures tell the greatest story so here are a few from our Christmas last year…

Our Elf on the Shelf Terrance arrived for the season with presents and a donut breakfast. He was also sporting a new jersey. He knew we were nuts about football in this house.

Here are the girls on our annual trip to pick out our Christmas tree. We are super fancy and get our tree from Home Depot every year. What can I say? It’s become our tradition 🙂

Terrance brought Sophie a plush Elf and she just loved her.

Lyla walked in our town’s holiday parade with her Girl Scout troupe. The parade ended with the tree lighting ceremony. This was Lyla’s first time walking in a parade (I walked along with her). It was a fun night and a great experience.

Lyla performed a routine with her gymnastics class in their annual holiday show. Our girl did so great!

Lyla and I went to see the Nutcracker with my mom. This is one of my favorite holiday traditions.

On Christmas Eve, we went to a local farm where they had snow tubing. We had so much fun!

On Christmas Eve night, we baked cookies for Santa.

And Sophie woke up with a major case of bed head.

We had a very low-key night at home, it was perfect.

Here the girls are opening their one gift on Christmas Eve.

Someone was loving Christmas.

Santa came!

Lyla had been begging for a pajanimal. She reminds me of Ralphie from A Christmas Story.

We went to my in-laws house for a quick drink and appetizers. Here are the ladies of the family.

We ended the night at my parents house. That was our Christmas in a nutshell!! It was a lovely time.

Wow, I can’t believe its been close to a year since I’ve done a post. I’ve thought about this blog pretty much every single day during that time and often wondered, why I couldn’t just sit down and write a post? Truth is, once the holidays hit, things in our world got pretty crazy. I underestimated how busy things would get at Lyla’s school, I underestimated how difficult it would be to have a child with a birthday the day before Christmas Eve, and I really underestimated how hard it would be to watch my parents move back to Florida. I really focused all my time and energy went into my kids and my family and my blog just wasn’t a priority in my life during this time. But I missed it. I really did. I would literally write out posts in my head but just never sit down and write them out. I really hope to get back into a normal posting routine and continue to share my world.

That being said, I have so much to catch-up on! So much has happened in our lives since last Thanksgiving. Some good, some sad but so much happy! I hope I can maybe do a quick (yeah right) recap of all that’s gone on in the last nine months. It feels good to be back!!